Countdown
by TeaNSympathy
Summary: Four times they went out for New Year's Eve and one time they stayed in
1. New Year's Eve 1996

Jill

Jill is starving. She hadn't eaten all day so that she could fit into the tight black satin sheath dress Cliff had recommended she wear. Her hair is blow-dried to silky perfection and the sapphire and diamond pendant he'd given her for Christmas hangs heavily around her neck. She knows it sets off her eyes, but there's something about it she hates. It's too big. It's too much.

She spots him across the room, tall and handsome, deep in conversation with one of the firm's wealthiest clients and his wife. He scans the room and she knows he is looking for her, knows that once he makes eye contact she will have to join them and perform her duties as the charming young wife of the firm's newest partner.

Rebelliously, Jill ducks out of Cliff's eyeline and slips through a sliding glass door and onto the balcony. The party is being held at the penthouse apartment of one of the named partners and the view is exquisite. The lights of New York spread out below Jill, a patchwork of blazing gemstones. She leans on the railing gazing out at the glittering city and feels only an aching emptiness.

She supposes this is adulthood. She supposes this is marriage. She supposes this is just how it is.  
Cheers and yells from the party spill out the door as the countdown to midnight begins. She swallows hard, pastes on a dazzling smile, and heads inside to find her husband.

Roger

The firm is, to be brutally honest, mid-tier, but they don't skimp when it comes to the annual New Year's Eve party. The festivities are held in the ornate ballroom of one of New York's finer hotels and Roger and his fellow lowly associates are thrilled to be invited and even more thrilled to find that there is an open bar. He is just finishing his second Scotch when Lou nudges him.

"Look over there."

He looks toward the door and sees that a group of paralegals from the firm has just walked in, unfamiliar in their glittery finery.

"It's your chance, man. Go ask her to dance."

Renee. Cute, bubbly, curly-haired Renee. Renee who he has been apparently not so subtly admiring for weeks. He is trying not to stare, but the short hot pink dress she has on is extremely flattering to her curvy figure and it's hard to look away.

Dave chimes in."C'mon Roger. It's 15 minutes to midnight. No time to waste!"He chugs the rest of the Scotch and heads across the ballroom, the trip taking forever. Somehow he gets to her and manages to choke out "Would you like to dance?"

She smiles and nods and then somehow they are out on the dance floor and she is in his arms, smiling up at him with her glossed lips. He tries to think of something witty to say but then the countdown begins, "TEN! NINE! EIGHT!..." and she kisses him first and he doesn't have to say anything at all.


	2. New Year's Eve 2004

Jill

Jill had received three invitations but had turned them all down. They are all for events where it's possible Cliff will show up, at the homes of friends that were Cliff's first. After months of wrangling their divorce is finally final and seeing her ex-husband is the last thing she wants.

She spends much of the evening sorting through her clothes, deciding what will best fit her new career as a public defender. What to keep, what to toss, what to donate. The evening flies by and when she stops to look at the clock it is eleven.

Tying off the last garbage bag full of clothes to donate, she decides to take a walk. Bundled in her thick coat, she wanders through the neighborhood dodging the occasional band of noisy revellers and enjoying the cool night air and the lightness of knowing that she is no longer anybody's wife  
Shortly before midnight, she impulsively ducks into a dive bar where she's never been before. The bartender hands her a flute of champagne and a group of women about her age slide over to make room for her at the bar. The Times Square ball is dropping on TV and she joins the chorus counting down from ten. As everyone embraces amidst shouts of "Happy New Year!" she can't repress a little laugh of pure delight. She may be surrounded by strangers tonight, but she's never felt less alone.

Roger

The party is at the house of one of Renee's friends. It saddens him, that it's now Renee's friends and his friends whereas it used to be their friends, but since she'd stopped working and he'd left the firm for the SDNY the division had been clear: his friends mostly lawyers he knows in the city, her friends the other moms she knows from playdates and preschool and their husbands.  
Their husbands mostly seem to work in finance and enjoy football and, although Roger has been trying, he's been unable to work up an interest in either topic.  
Both of them were exhausted, but he'd thought it would do Renee good to have a New Years Eve out and had persuaded her to hire a sitter and buy a new dress. She seems to be having a good time, but unfortunately the good time doesn't include him. After politely disengaging from an excruciating conversation about pork futures, he finds Renee on her cellphone with the babysitter in the hall. He silently hands her a flute of champagne as she finishes her conversation and hangs up.  
"Everything ok at home?"  
"Just fine. Maggie read Noelle two bedtime stories."  
"Wow. All by herself?"  
"Yes!" Renee snaps. "She's been doing it for weeks, Roger. Which you would be aware of, if you ever got home before nine!"  
Her voice is louder than she probably meant it to be and he sees a few heads turn. In a lower voice, she says, " I don't want to fight here. I'm going to the ladies room. But we need to talk later."  
She drains her champagne and disappears. Roger is left staring after her, sick with the knowledge that something is broken between them, perhaps irreparably, and he has no idea how to fix it. The countdown to midnight begins and he hopes she'll come back, but by the time it's gotten to one she is nowhere to be seen. Surrounded by couples kissing and shouts of "Happy New Year" he wonders how it is that he is married, a father, surrounded by aquaintances, and yet he's never felt more alone.


	3. New Year's Eve 2008

Jill

Jill is tentatively planning to meet her friend Claire at a bar later that evening. Claire had assured her there would be lots of available men there. Jill, who's just ended a three-month relationship when the man in question started bringing up marriage, is less than thrilled at that prospect, but it will be good to see Claire.

They aren't planning to meet until 10 so she stays on at work after everyone else has left for the evening, her light the only one on in the darkened building. She goes to trial next week defending an accused murderer. The accused is a teenager, a shy, scared kid who Jill is sure was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She's been working round the clock on the case and as a result is so exhausted that it barely even registers when her eyes grow heavier and heavier...

She wakes hours later, stiff from sleeping in her chair, cheek resting on a pile of files. Muttering an assortment of four-letter words, she checks her watch. 12:20 AM. It is 2009 and she has missed midnight.  
"Oh well," she sighs, grabbing her cold cup of coffee and raising it in a toast to herself. "Happy New Year to me."

Roger

Roger's friend Bobby, also recently divorced, invites him to a party assuring him there will be lots of hot girls there, but Roger declines. He knows Bobby's taste in women and doesn't have the energy to try to chat up twenty-somethings.

Instead he goes to the movies. The small theatre in Westchester is almost completely empty. He sits in his favorite aisle seat and loses himself in The Wrestler, followed by a late showing of Wings of Desire, both of which Renee would have hated (she's never been a movie person)

The movies keep him from thinking about last year, when he was still a husband and Maggie had been allowed to stay up until midnight for the first time. As the credits roll on the second film, he looks at his watch. 12:20 AM. It is officially 2009 and he has made it through the year. That wasn't so bad, he tells himself.


	4. New Year's Eve 2013

Jill and Roger

McGillicuddy's holiday clientele is not completely comprised of lawyers, but it is close. Just as it is on an everyday happy hour, the bar is unofficially divided into two sections, public defenders congregating in the back room, prosecutors in the front, with the circular bar in the middle serving as a buffer and a neutral zone.

The place is packed. Jill has to fight her way to the bar when it's her turn to get the next round. As she hands a fifty to the harried bartender and grabs the drinks for her table, she hears a familiar voice."Hey, Jill."

It's not unheard of for her to run into Roger Gunn outside of the office, but it's always odd and a little unnerving when she sees him outside of work or baseball. She never quite know where he fits. Slightly more than a colleague, slightly less than a friend. Limbo.

"Hey. Careful, you don't want to be seen talking to the enemy."  
He chuckles.  
"It's New Year's Eve. No enemies here. So, what do you think of Youkilis' chances this season?"

They talk baseball for a few minutes and then Jill suddenly becomes aware that the bar has begun the countdown to midnight. Oh no. There's no way she can get through the crowd to her table before midnight. She is trapped with Roger Gunn and she has no idea what to do. Should they kiss? Of course not! Absurd! (And yet, a tiny thought swims across her mind, the idea that kissing Roger might not be all that unpleasant. She squelches the thought instantly, chalking it up to too much champagne.) Hug? They definitely don't have that kind of relationship.

"Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!"  
Saving her from making a decision, he clinks his champagne glass to hers.  
"Happy New Year! May they win another series! "  
Relieved, Jill clinks back.  
'Happy New Year! To the Yankees!"


	5. New Year's Eve 2019

Jill and Roger

"I still don't understand why you won't eat crust."

Jill reaches a pajama- clad arm across Roger to pick up the piece he's just left in the box with the remains of the pizza they'd ordered. Thin crust at his insistence, extra cheese at hers. His half smothered in vegetables, hers dotted with pepperoni.

"Empty carbs," he sighs.  
"My favorite kind!" She crunches the crust satisfyingly, then snuggles back into his side."Are you sure you're not sorry we stayed in this year?" she asks. They'd both turned down multiple invitations.  
He smiles.  
"Not even remotely."  
Picking up his champagne flute, he clinks it to hers.  
"To relaxed New Year's Eves."  
"I'll drink to that " She takes a sip, then points to the TV.  
"Look! It's starting!"  
The glittering ball begins its descent and they count along with the crowd.  
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"  
Their lips meet and he pulls her tight into his arms, kissing her until they are both out of breath. When they finally part the TV has gone to commercial.  
"Happy New Year, Roger" she whispers.  
"Happy New Year, my love."


End file.
